Birthday Blues

My memories in the hospital with my daughter and her birth mother were sacred. I had prepared for it to feel dark and heavy: and yet, for us it wasn’t once we were actually there. Our relationship with “Momma E” flourished, and I spent the night on the pull-out couch in her hospital room. I walked with her hand in hand to the NICU, where we gazed at our daughter together. We shared so many words that were encouraging and had fully given me assurance of her decision. It was not until we were saying our final goodbyes with her own flesh and blood tucked into our carseat and waving goodbye that those feelings grew dark and heavy. I had not expected her loss to impact me as it did. I had always known adoption was born out of someone else’s loss, but now that that person who indeed was “losing” had become a sister to me, it could no longer not impact me.

This weekend as I watched my one-year-old walk to her high chair, I contemplated how hard it must be hundreds of miles away for the woman I love and who bore my daughter. I thought about how badly she must long to see this daughter completing these milestones and eating her birthday cake. The videos and pictures I sent her I knew was not the same as being in the room with us.

So, like the day she was born, I had tied matching bracelets to her and to her first mommas’ wrist. It was a physical reminder to her that they would always be tied to one another, sharing something only they do. I latched the bracelet again, on her much chubbier wrist, as a sign of honor to the woman who choose us a year ago and who continues to be her first mother no matter how many days pass.